(note: this is a morally grey area if you think what they did was bad and I honestly don't think it was, but I don't want to give away spoilers)
and they get away with it without any legal consequences. That is until years later when Leigh is a lawyer and Calli is a heroin addict and their past comes back to haunt them. Thriller things ensure.
Look, this is a good book. It's fast-paced and well-written. But maybe, just maybe, listening to a story about sisters who truly love one another and are devoted to each other was not the right choice for me at this exact moment in time. (If you're new around here, I have a tumultuous relationship with my sister, my mother died earlier this year, and so everything surrounding my family of origin is difficult.) ANYWAY. I found some scenes really hard to listen to. Really hard. There's graphic (GRAPHIC) depictions of sexual violence; violence violence, including guns; child abuse and neglect; pandemic stuff; and drug abuse. This is not for the faint of heart and I'm slowly coming to the realization that perhaps I *am* the faint of heart.
4/5 stars, but be forewarned
Things I looked up:
Vince Dooley (Spring 2021 - Chapter 1) - an American college football coach. He was the head coach of the Georgia Bulldogs from 1964 to 1988, as well as the University of Georgia's (UGA) athletic director from 1979 to 2004.
viviparous (Spring 2021 - Chapter 4) - there are two definitions, one in zoology and one in botany
- (of an animal) bringing forth live young that have developed inside the body of the parent.
- (of a plant) reproducing from buds that form plantlets while still attached to the parent plant, or from seeds that germinate within the fruit.
Hat mentions (why hats?):
his hat in his hand (Spring 2021 - Chapter 10)
colorful hat on her head (Spring 2021 - Chapter 11)
his hat in his hands (Summer 2005)
*******************
Are you the faint of heart? Do you read a lot of thrillers?
I like some thrillers, but if the characters do something too stupid for words in the first chapters, I pop to the last 2 to see if it's worth continuing. I am not faint of heart, but I prefer more subtle depictions of hard topics. But I can just skim sections so I don't DNF books I otherwise like.
ReplyDeleteIt is hard to skim/skip in audio form, so I suspect that's why this hit so hard. Maybe it would have been a better read for me.
DeleteI am somewhat faint of heart. I can read about violence up to a point, but I do have a too-much alarm that will go off. Sometimes a story will hit my empathy feelings harder and I just can't do it, can't dissociate enough to read it.
ReplyDeleteI can tolerate more in print than I do in audio, though, since I can skim over the harder parts better with my eyes than my ears, so there are books I just can't do in audio.
YES! I should not have done this in audio. You are 100% accurate.
DeleteI think it depends a lot on my mood. Sometimes I can do a more scary or graphic thriller, but only if I have the bandwidth. That's cool you're doing a reading challenge. I did the Book Riot Read Harder challenge for several years, but I haven't done it for the past few years. Something I'd consider down the line, but I think right now I want to focus on reading books I really love/abandoning what's not working for me, and I think the completest in me would find that hard with a challenge.
ReplyDeleteI've done this reading challenge for several years now, but this is the first year it's really felt like a chore. I'm not sure if I'll do it again.
DeleteI haven't read anything by Karen Slaughter before, lately I've been reading alot by Ruth Ware.
ReplyDeleteI enjoy thrillers and the suspense but not hectic violence, in fact I've never listened to an audio tape, I always read.
Ruth Ware is to Karin Slaughter what RL Stine is to Stephen King, I think. It's a lot less graphic!
DeleteI like thrillers but not with graphic abuse. And I really dislike gratuitous swearing. So it can be hard to find a good thrillers with my picky restrictions ;)
ReplyDeleteI had a Karin Slaughter book but ended up not reading it because I read a few reviews and everyone was complaining about how slow the middle section of the book was and I've read quite a few books with middle sections that lagged so I was in no mood for that!
I didn't think this one lagged. I actually thought it was perfectly paced.
DeleteUgh- I can take a lot, but child abuse is really hard for me (or cruelty to animals). And not that it's on the same level as those things, but I do NOT want to read any more about the pandemic. I'm pretty sure I've read other books by this author, but I'll just skip this one.
ReplyDeleteThe pandemic stuff was basically that this took place during the pandemic, so there's mention of masks, etc. And two of the characters had COVID which led to long-term consequences. Now that I'm writing it out, it was a lot about the pandemic. You should avoid this book!
DeleteI can totally see how this book was triggering for you. I don't read a lot of thrillers. I've read a few, and I don't know that I'm faint of heart - but I don't necessarily like to be freaked out, especially when other genres call to me.
ReplyDeleteI think I want to like thrillers and mysteries more than I do. Hm. Maybe I should reevaluate what I really want to read.
DeleteI can read about the pandemic every day, and some abuse maybe, but not too much, and not horribly graphic. I think I am too faint of heart for this book.
ReplyDeleteStay away from this one, J! It's a rough go!
DeleteI LOVE Karin Slaughter. If you like audio books, Kathleen Early is the actress who reads heres, and she 's wonderful.
ReplyDeleteI did listen to this on audio and it was pretty good.
DeleteThis sounds like a perfect Christmas gift for my (crime-reader) wife who happens to have a sister and they are good friends...sorry your situation is different.
ReplyDeleteIt's a good book, but maybe not for me right now.
DeletePretty sure Karin Slaughter is her real name. I like her generally, although there is one character in her series that I hate so much I wrote an entire blog post about it.https://bibliomama2.blogspot.com/2024/11/the-i-hate-sara-linton-club.html
ReplyDeleteHa! I even commented on that post. I join you in Sara Linton hate!
DeleteYesssss
DeleteI gravitate toward thrillers more than any other genre. (Makes sense; I wrote one.) I think I've read one Karin Slaughter novel, and enjoyed it, but Tara is a much bigger fan.
ReplyDeleteBecause I get iffy around sexual assault, drug/alcohol abuse, and gun violence, thrillers tend to be not a great fit for me. But that's on me, not on the books!
Delete